Jenaro Abasolo: idealistic foundation for the care of human dignity

Abstract

This article analyzes the notion of “dignity” of the Chilean philosopher Jenaro Abasolo (1833-1884). For this purpose, a conceptual relationship is established with four source authors: Kant, Fichte, Quinet and Michelet. In general, Fichte's conception of dignity, linked to the shaping of the material world from the spirit and to perfectibility, becomes the explanatory axis of Quinet and Michelet, and, consequently, of Abasolo's idealistic approach. In these authors, Kant's idea of dignity remains in the background when they notice that Fichte connects spiritual causality to the shaping of the empirical world through work. For him, and for Abasolo, this activity, being universally participatory, allows perfectibility to be a vocation not only of the wise, but of any person in his own circumstance, however modest it may be. In turn, Abasolo will try to find the reasons that support the state's protection of work and, in general, of the minimum social and economic conditions that are the basis for the care of people's dignity.